Romney/Palin, Angle/Reid, and a bit more….
Greetings from vacation!
Romney/Palin – The Left Will Not Let It Die…
Last week’s left created Romney/Palin psuedo-dust-up sure did catch the attention of the leftie punditry. Steve Kornacki of Salon basically said that Romney was a misogynist. There was a response from Allahpundit, but Andrew Sullivan (yes I am about to say something nice about him) had the most salient observation:
If policies come up during debates, and she gives the same answers she gives on Fox now, and Mitt Romney pounces on her, the story will not be that the GOP’s frontrunner gave a pallid answer. The story will be that Mitt Romney pounced. What does this do to his image? What does Mike Huckabee have to say about it?
This entire episode from its ill-defined inception until now is designed, by a left leaning media, to cast the race first as Romney v Palin and secondly do whatever they can to divide Republicans. And in some circles, it is working to some extent.
There are serious candidates – Romney, Pawlenty – probably serious candidates – Thune – wannabe serious candidates – Daniels – and then there are media serious candidates – Palin, Gingrich and Huckabee. Look at those names. The “media serious candidates” all carry serious baggage and they all represent only a portion of the Republican/conservative movement. Of course the portions they represent are the portions the media and the left love to use to describe the entire movement and they are the most divisive portions. They are also portions that cannot possibly win general elections – which is why the left likes those names so well. If any of those people run, it will be for building their personal media cred.
Amongst the serious, Romney is clearly the frontrunner and he continues to straw poll well.
Now, what is amazing about all this is that Romney’s religion has not come up. By even mainstream denominational Christianity standards, Mormon complimentarian views about the genders might be considered a bit archaic if being kind and sexist if not. When you have people at Kos writing stuff like this:
The greatest value in the book is Zaitchik’s patient exploration of the affect Beck’s conversion to Mormonism has exerted on his politics and beliefs, but also on his methods of message of delivery. Beck has managed something fairly difficult in the presentation of his schmaltz to the audiences he’s dog-whistling: he’s using the tried and true confessional style of his chosen religion to rope in evangelicals and even more secular (but teary-eyed) members of the hard right. This is no small feat, as Mitt Romney can testify; many on the right are not all at ease with Mormonism, and Beck’s bridging of its style with old-fashioned knee-jerk patriotism is part of his unique appeal.
You’d think they would feel compelled to make a big deal out the CJCLDS view on the role of women. Of course, I doubt this conversation is over.
Angle/Reid…
Nothing, and I repeat nothing, could be better for America at this present electoral juncture than the defeat of Harry Reid in Nevada. Therefore, it pains me to point out that his opponent, Sharon Angle, is seemingly going out of her way to assure him of victory. GetReligion discusses a Las Vegas Sun story on Angle:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle describes her motivation for seeking elected office as a religious calling.
Politics, including her bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is God’s purpose for her life — one he has long been preparing her for, she says.
“When God calls you, he also equips you and he doesn’t just say ‘Well, today you’re going to run against Harry Reid.’ There is a preparation,” she said during a recent interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “Moses had his preparatory time. Paul had his preparatory time. Even Jesus had his preparatory time, and so my preparation began on a school board.”
GR even has the video. I am reminded of the numbskull in Idaho a few months back that convened all the Mormons in the area. We chastised him and now, well….
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
But the press should be vilified for reporting this and not Reid’s Mormonism, particularly give the treatment Mormonism got last presidential cycle. I guess its not really the religion, but the political views and party affiliation of the candidate that matter when it comes to religion as a political weapon.
General Religion Stuff…
But in closing, let us reprint a C.S. Lewis quote posted by Godblogger Justin Taylor yesterday:
I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.
I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.
The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . .
The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
That dear friends are words worth deep consideration.
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JLF9999 on 20 Jul 2010 at 10:20 am #
In Kornacki’s Salon.com piece he said, speaking of Romney’s perceived female problem, “Jeghelian’s own shortcomings, of course, were the main reason for her collapse. But it still irked many women to watch her use her convention speech to literally beg for a chance to run — and then to be denied.” The writer acknowledged Jeghelian was unprepared and was not a good candidate. You should read the article to get the entire flavor but this comment stood out markedly for me. It was for that reason that she was discriminated against, not her sex. However, the Jeghelian thing does raise an interesting issue: Should women be treated any differently than men based solely on their sex? Apparently many Libs and pundits think so or this piece would not have been written. Women, given they are human too, are just as likely to have bad ideas and be unprepared as any man. Palin, given she is human too, has good and bad ideas. We kick ideas around but I don’t remember abusing the people who come up with them. Real women just want to be a part of the process, be treated with respect for their contributions and not be discriminated against because of their gender. No woman I know suggests that everything that proceeds from a woman’s voice is sacred. That is what I think happened in Massachusetts. Ms. Jeghelian was treated as an equal and lost because of what she brought to the table.
JLF9999 on 20 Jul 2010 at 11:02 am #
I really like Newt. He is one of the most interesting people I know of. But I don’t think he has the stomach for serious bare-knuckles politics. He said so when he left the House. “It is just too hard.” I use quotes here because I am certain those were his words exactly. They struck me solidly.
Palin speaks in what some call a folksy manner. To me, she sounds like a high school drop out. Communication is too important a skill to be trifled with, especially at the presidential level. Things are too important. The bottom line is she can’t do the job because she can’t speak properly. She has to make 8th grade English teachers all over the nation cringe when she opens her mouth. It isn’t folksy, it is embarrassing. Couple that with her need to have prepared remarks to sound intelligent and I get the impression she can’t think on her feet. Again, she hasn’t the skills to do the job. Nice lady though. She has some good ideas too but she is not presidential.
Mike Huckabee is the easy going good neighbor we all should have. In fact he reminds me of a neighbor, Jim Nabors in fact. Maybe that Gomer Pyle good natured grin works for some but I would rather have a a tough maybe somewhat cynical president who is not quite so concerned about being liked by everyone. I want someone who is willing to get down in the dirt and mix it up with the his opponents. I want a president who will not back down in a fight. Mike Huckabee, for all his gladness and happy demeanor, doesn’t fit that bill. He reminds me of the kid who had to get along with everyone because he got beaten up if he didn’t.
Now, let me take a whack at who I think is probably the best candidate for the job. Everyone gets a turn under my gaze. Mitt Romney has a couple of things he needs to improve on to be my ideal candidate. First, he looked like someone who had his lunch money stolen when, during the 2008 debates, John McCain came after him. McCain is an old bare-knuckles kind of fighter and proved it over and over. I liked that. Romney should take lessons from him. Second, he looks and sounds like a Mormon bishop, all smiles and handshakes. That isn’t a bad thing, but if you are a Mormon, you know there has to be more to the man than that – and there always is. In politics however, I think successful people have to show a tough side too. It isn’t always pretty but I think it is necessary. Sometimes, as president, you have to make hard choices that mean some people will lose a lot, maybe everything. I want to know in advance whether they are up to it. I want to see my candidate take on some mean spirited character and win – hands down. Nixon style. Close down a production facility that needed closing regardless of what it did to the workers and the community. The key here is “needed”. That means do an unpopular thing because it answered a greater good. That means going to that community afterwards and listening to the people affected. That is tough but it is something a president will have to do. I want a president who knows from experience that tough decisions require tough-minded decision makers. I think Romney has those qualities, he just doesn’t present them.
JLF9999 on 20 Jul 2010 at 11:19 am #
The Sharon Angle story makes me cringe. Just as the Southern Baptist Convention seems to have gone out of their way to assure everyone, including Mormons, that they want to change their ways, along comes Sharon. Talk about offending the very people you need to get elected. This woman must make a lot of Nevada’s conservatives heads hurt. What kind of conversation is she going to have withe 20% of Nevada’s conservative population that are LDS? Is she really going to spit in their faces and then ask for their vote? Who is advising this woman, Judas?
coltakashi on 20 Jul 2010 at 3:22 pm #
Great C.S. Lewis quotation. It is quite evident that the drafters of the U.S. constitution were very concerned about the fallability of humans, and therefore created a system with division of power–with even a division within the Congress–and checks and balances, and overall a division of power between the Federal and the State governments. The Bill of Rights was added out of concern to explicitly recognize the powers that were reserved to citizens, as opposed to the government.
Sadly, the driving assumption of the currently ruling party is neither that of Lewis nor that of Rousseau. The current government does not recognize human fallability in government, nor does it believe in trusting in the citizenry to make decisions. It is instead an oligarchy that defines “democracy” as that which rules “for the people” but not “by the people”. We do not remember, in our commemorations of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, that ALL governments are governments “OF the people”, including the Nazis and the communists. The precious thing that Lincoln saw at risk in 1863 was government “BY the people, and For the people.”
coltakashi on 20 Jul 2010 at 3:52 pm #
You linked to the “Scary Graph” that projected the recent downward trend in Christian church affiliation in the USA, which extrapolated as a straight line would reach zero membership in 2240, 230 years from now. It is hard to credit that as a prediction; a lot of things have happened with American Christians in the last 230 years (since the Revolutionary War in 1780), including the Second Great Awakening that brought church affiliation to millions on the expanding frontier. On the other hand, the last couple of years the Southern Baptist Convention has reported slightly negative net membership changes.
One of the things that happened on the frontier was the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830. Since that time, as was pointed out by Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark, the growth rate of the CJCLDS Church has served as an example of the moderate but steady growth that the original Christian church experienced in the first centuries of the Christian Era. Worldwide, and consistently since 1830, the Church at least doubles every 20 years. These days, half of Mormons live outside the US, and in the US the growth rate is not as fast, though Mormons still have almost twice the birthrate of other Christians, including Catholics.
There are almost 6 million Mormons on record in the US. If we assume a doubling of the US CJCLDS membership only every 30 years, this continued growth rate would place LDS membership in the US at over 2 to the 6th power = 64, times 5 million, or 320,000,000 Mormons by the year 2240. With the general US birth rate, and thus the population, shrinking past 2050, this would be almost everyone in the US.
That seems hard to imagine. Currently the highest Mormon proportion in a nation is in Tonga at 45%, followed by Samoa at 30%. May I suggest it is conceivable that, in two centuries, a third of the US could be Mormon. Sometime between now and then, it seems likely that at least one of the presidents Americans elect will be Mormon, just as it is certain that there will be a number of female presidents, as well.
I don’t think that the election of a Mormon president is going to signifiantly advance membership in the CJCLDS Church. To the contrary, given the continuing prejudice against Mormons, it seems more likely to me that the continuing growth of Mormonism is eventually going to make election of more Mormons to Congress, and then a Mormon to the presidency, seem inevitable. By that time, indeed, it may be that a member of the ticket in each major political party (whatever they are then) could be Mormon, just as Harry Reid and Mitt Romney are national leaders of their parties. And because of the expanding diversity of Mormon demographics, one of those Mormons could be of Polynesian, Asian, Hispanic or black ancestry.
Obviously all sorts of things can happen between now and then, but if Christians want to remain a significant part of US society in the next 200 years, they should take seriously the need to maintain family size and the need to recruit and keep people from the remainder of society. Loss or growth at the margins is all it takes to determine the future.
Brent Welker on 20 Jul 2010 at 4:17 pm #
“By even mainstream denominational Christianity standards, Mormon complimentarian views about the genders might be considered a bit archaic if being kind and sexist if not.”
John Schroeder on 20 Jul 2010 at 4:26 pm #
Brent:
That is in fact my suggestion. “Mainstream Denominational Christians” refers to Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Lutherans – all of which ordain women. Southern Baptists are the bridge between protestant denominationalism and evangelicalism and the RCC and Orthodox are the mother churches.
coltakashi on 20 Jul 2010 at 5:41 pm #
John: You wrote “By even mainstream denominational Christianity standards, Mormon complimentarian views about the genders might be considered a bit archaic if being kind and sexist if not.”
I am wondering here how well acquainted you are with women’s roles in the CJCLDS Church. If your comment is based on the emphasis on mothers caring for children in the home, I would point out that Mormons also emphasize the importance of fathers playing a nurturing role in the home, as a higher priority above their careers and even positions in the Church.
If your comment is based on the fact that Mormons don’t ordain women in their priesthood, I would note that, because Mormons don’t have career clergy, this is not something that closes off a career choice to women; men don’t have such a choice either. In fact, while priesthood ordination is an element of certain leadership positions, women also have significant leadership positions, ones that would be considered pastoral if they were in many Protestant churches. The adult women of a congregation are led by a presidency of women. Women presidencies also lead and teach teenage girls, and all of the children under age 12. There are women in oversight positions for all three of these organizations at higher levels of the Church as well, including worldwide leadership positions, held by women who travel the world and speak in the Church’s general conference every six months, as well as in general church wide meetings just for adult women and for teenage girls and their adult leaders.
In the weekly worship service, the invocation or benediction are often given by women, and many of the sermons are by women who belong to the congregation. Women also teach many of the Sunday School classes for teens and adults.
You are aware that many young women serve as volunteer missionaries, and that many retired couples, husbands and wives, also serve as volunteer missionaries around the world. For example, just in the last few years my neighbors have served as missionaries in New Jersey, Florida, North Dakota, Omaha, and Nigeria.
Mormon women are encouraged to gain educations, and half of BYU students are women. Many of their professors are also women. For example, my son-in-law’s aunt and her husband are both mathematics professors at BYU. A number of the senior leaders of the CJCLDS have wives who were professionals in their own right. The current president of Deseret Book, the commercial publishing company for the Church, is Sheri Dew, a single woman and popular author and speaker, who spent several years as one of the three members of the world-wide Relief Society presidency leading all adult women.
The Mormon Declaration on the Family teaches Latter-day Saint men that they are to treat their wives as equals in the marriage and family. Mormon doctrine instructs men that they cannot use any position of authority coercively, but that leadership in the family and church can only be exercised by “gentleness, and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” There is no “My word is law” patriarchy in orthodox Mormonism.
Mormonism allows women whose husbands are unfaithful or abusive to divorce without any Church opposition. Husbands who commit adultery will be considered for excommunication. Chastity within marriage is expected of both men and women.
In Mormon theology, the ultimate ordinance is marriage for eternity in one of the temples. No man can receive full exaltation without his wife. Within the temple, ordinances specifically for women are performed by women. In the ordinance of vicarious baptism on behalf of our kindred dead, women stand in for their female ancestors.
One of the beliefs that Mormons are often criticized for is the belief that we have both a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. Whatever people may think of this, they should admit that it provides an exalted role model for women. Holiness for men or women is not found, Mormons believe, in isolation and permanent celibacy, but in the union for eternity of man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother, who will be united with their children and descendants in the resurrection of the just.
I am a professional and I work with women professionals in my company who are attorneys, engineers, accountants, and managers. I can’t think of any of those jobs that could not be done by a Mormon woman. In the local community of Mormon lawyers here in the Tri-Cities in eastern Washington State, there are several Mormon women.
On the short list of women who have served in the US Senate, one of them was Paula Hawkins of Florida, a Mormon, whose son-in-law was a missionary in France with Mitt Romney, and whose daughter was a congressional staffer when we knew them in Maryland.
In sum, I don’t see any of the above aspects of the lives of Mormon women as either “archaic” or “sexist.” I doubt that Mitt Romney’s wife or daughters-in-law do either. Certainly his mother, who was highly involved in politics, did not.
coltakashi on 20 Jul 2010 at 6:45 pm #
May I add a couple more examples of “Mormon women.” Justice Christine Durham of the Utah Supreme Court is married to a pediatrician. When their children were young, they shared child care duties so both could complete their educations. One of their children was, I recall, a special needs child.
I attended law school at the University of Utah with a married couple, who went on to become a member of the Utah Supreme Court and a juvenile court judge as they raised a family. They recently retired.
Again, being ordained as a priest in the CJCLDS church has nothing to do with having a career as a pastor. There are no Mormon career pastors. The primary function of priesthood ordination of all worthy men is to enable them to perform religious duties in their own families.
There are a few positions as professors teaching religious doctrine and history at the various BYU campuses, but many of those positions are filled by women. for example, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith, BYU produced a TV series on his life, which was hosted by noted historian Professor Susan Easton Black.
The few men (just over a hundred) who are paid full-time church leaders have generally first served decades as unpaid part-time leaders at various levels of the Church organization, and given up careers in all sorts of fields. In general, you can depend on the fact that most of them were getting paid more money in the successful professional careers they left behind. For example, I attended college with the son of one senior Church leader, who had been a chemistry professor at the University of Utah. At one point in his career, he was approached with three job offers. General Electric Offered to double his professor salary. Westinghouse offered to triple it. The Church offered to cut it in half.
Any Mormon woman who wants to serve others as a leader and teacher in the Church will have plenty of opportunities over her lifetime. Any Mormon, woman or man, who wants to be PAID for performing the functions of a pastor is going to be frustrated, because there aren’t any such positions. Any person, woman or man, who craves the position of pastor in order to exercise power over others rather than serve them needs to repent and give up their pride.
John Schroeder on 21 Jul 2010 at 2:14 am #
Colt:
I am very familiar with the LDS and the role of women – understanding fully what you say – but what you describe is the very definition of “Complimentarianism” – that is to say men and women have equally important but complimentary, not identical, roles. In my own PC(USA) such arguments were made for about 20 years before they fell and are also part of the splintering within prebyterianism.
On a personal note, I do not defend the current egalitarian current view of my church, but do not find it so objectionable as to want to leave over it. Were it my decision, I would tend to be complimentarian, but in my church such decisions are taken corporately.
My point is straightforward, by the view of most liberal and or “forward-looking” (whatever that really means) complimentarianism is an “old” view. It is routinely insulted and ridiculed in academic and leadership circles. I have little doubt that the article was a set up to attack Romney’s faith on that ground.
JLF9999 on 21 Jul 2010 at 10:35 am #
Mormonism is creating a higher profile among the religious powers in the USA. Topics on Mormon theological views are now being discussed in academic venues across the nation and are given some credence where none was had before. Could it be that with the professional academic study of Mormon theology there is an awakening that what we declare could be the case? And could it be that this new acceptance is the basis for the attack on Romney? By that I mean, if what Mormonism says is true in a few things does it not open the door for Mormonism to be true in a lot of things? The discussion could move out of academic circles to other areas of American discourse. A President of Romney would add credibility to what before had been a metaphysical threat to all Christianity. Does Mormonism now create a moving target that is becoming more difficult to score against and does it now make the threat of a President Mitt Romney more problematic among Evangelical Republicans?
SLATE – Lower Than… | Article VI Blog | John Schroeder on 18 Aug 2010 at 9:09 pm #
[...] Angle’s invocation of here faith in a Las Vegas Sun interview may mark the lowest point of a p…. However, despite her missteps and malapropisms she remains a far preferable choice in comparison to Harry Reid. What is unbelievable is that Slate would pile onto a campaign clearly faltering with an attack of this sort. She gave them plenty of ammunition without having to stoop to this level of innuendo and sleight-of-hand. It seems clear Slate, as edited by Weisberg, would agree with the recent Prop 8 ruling that religion causes harm and therefore feels justified in this sort of attack there upon. [...]